2008 is both a real, and a fictional, election year. In 1955 Isaac Asimov wrote a short story titled Franchise about a fictional election in 2008:

In the future, the United States has converted to an “electronic democracy” where the computer Multivac selects a single person to answer a number of questions. Multivac will then use the answers and other data to determine what the results of an election would be, avoiding the need for an actual election to be held.

The story centers around Norman Muller, the man chosen as “Voter of the Year” in 2008. At first he is not sure he wants the responsibility of representing the entire electorate, worrying that the result will be unfavorable and he will be blamed. However, after voting he is very proud that the citizens of the United States had, through him, “exercised once again their free, untrammeled franchise” - a statement that is somewhat ironic as the citizens didn’t actually get to vote.

I might actually endorse this electoral system.

Last year it was Copyright Infringement High, now it’s Copyright Infringement Elementary:

How do you think E. B. White feels about this?

Beware of the leopard.

I always had a dream of writing a novel in the second person future tense. I’m currently reading a novel in the second person present tense (apparently there’s a lot of them), which has only rekindled my interest in the subject.

You will always have a dream of writing a novel in the second person future tense. You will be reading a novel in the second person present tense (apparently there will be a lot of them), which will only rekindle your interest in the subject.

I just started reading the last Harry Potter book. Harry Potter drinks a surprising amount of alcohol in the first 150 pages.

BarBri is expensive: joining BarBri can cost over $3,000, just trying to snag the books on eBay can cost you over $700. Yesterday at lunchtime the books for this summer’s New York bar exam arrived at Georgetown and by 7:30pm they were already being put to effective use:

Yes, the box is full of books. Click to big-ify.

I know ONE door that’s going to be passing the bar.

For the zero lawyers who read this blog, here’s a scanned collection of old Blue Books starting with the first edition from 1926. Via Due Process.

I recently started reading Lincoln by David Herbert Donald and it mentioned this quote:

[A]ll those who, because of knowing too little, or because of knowing too much, could not conscientiously approve the conduct of the President, in the beginning of it, should… as good citizens and patriots, remain silent…, at least until the war should be ended.

Why don’t our modern-day pro-war elements pull this quote out all the time?  Sure, it’s referencing the Mexican-American war, which feels a little outdated, but you get the panache of citing to Lincoln, and the heady, Bill O’Reilly-esque feeling of glee from telling someone else to, basically, shut up.  It’s got everything!

Lincoln was a weird guy.

Part of what makes reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace fun as an intellectual exercise is his use of obscure language. Historically I tended to simply skip past the words that I didn’t know, but that seemed somehow unsatisfying, so during my most recent reading I tried to mark all the words I couldn’t immediately define. Here now is that list of words.

When a word has an ascertainable definition, the word has been linked to it. When the word has no clear definition, either because it’s too obscure or it’s a neologism (or a fauxlogism), I’ve left it unlinked. Feel free to hypothesize as to the meanings of these words. I did not include multiple variations on the same root, as long as the second or third word’s definition would have been fairly obvious from the definition of the first. Words that I think were spelled incorrectly are marked as typos.

Pages 1 to 99:

wen, kekuléan, lapidary, mimetic, presbyopic, ideogram, creatus, cirri, pases, enfilade, espadrilles, barnwood, hypophalangial, etiology, pleurisy, caries, prescriptive, assignations, anaplastic, lyrologist, apposite, nonpareil, febrile, anfractuous, pylacteryish, benighted, élan, kismet, apocopes, meatus, pertussives, megaspansules, dipsomania, neuralgia, neoplastis, lachrymose, concupiscence, recondite, mordantly, feck, festschrift, chiaroscuro, agaric, synesthesia, deliquesce, hypocapnia, plangent, circumorals, thigmotactic, synclinal, leptosomatic, quincunx, calliopsis, plosivity, diagnate, pedentive, amaneunsis (typo: amanuensis?), uremic, pedalferrous, fulvous, quiescent, digitate, suppliants, atavistically, piebald

Pages 100 to 199:

extant, aperçu, osseously, homuncular, verisimilitude, éclat, swinishest, fingerling, aether, bafflegab, formants, fricatives, trochaically, formication, limned, facies, acromegalic, hyperkeratosistic, enuretic, torticollic, transuranial, treillage, sulci, abducent, gyrus, sulcus, serodermatotic, tabescent, chachetic, steatocryptotic, scofulodermic, steatopygiacs, subhadronics, leukodermatic, xanthodantic, pyorrheic, peronic, teratoidal, aceryulus, diaphoretic, granulomatous, lazarettes, oubliettes, kyphotic, lordotic, pulchritudinous, Actaeonizing, papuled, ergotic, varicelliformally, lycanthropically, mansard

Pages 200 to 299:

mesomorphic, arpeggio, gonfalonish, mucronate, frustum, entrepôt, otiose, greatcoat, tumbrel, imprecated, carbuncular, scopophobic, tesseract, labile, scopophiliacal, blinis, tartines, aioli, strettoing, acclivated, propitiate, apotropaic, lacuna, paroxysmic, coccyges, jonquil, cruciform, egregulous, nystagmic, deafflatusized, sedulous, anthracnose, sinecure, phylogenic, apical, attar, strabismic, cathedran

Pages 300 to 399:

neurasthenic, dysphoric, bilirubin, tumid, verbiform, saluki, jerkin, blepharoplasty, mucronate, bradyphrenic, epistemically, saguaro, bradyauxetic, dysautonomically, bradypedestrianism-wise, lordosis, rectilinear, homodontic, tangrams, eidetic, frisson, thanatoptic (typo: thanatotic?), solander, peritonitis, prognathous, onanism, apothegm, apicals, caparison, cunctations, aphasiac, etiology, breviary, toque, aigrette, agnation, effluvia, adipose, jejune, enjambment, halcyon, purled, glabrous, assuasive, hagiography, pruritis, calotte, convolved

Pages 400 to 499:

saprogenic, brillantined, catastatic, avuncular, mycological, redemisement, cuirass, miasma, votaried, suppurating, orts, nacreous, picric, morendo, hinked, ablative, twiny, tympanum, woppsed, aphonia, aphrasiac, inguinal

Pages 500 to 599:

catalepsy, anhedonia, astrolabes, prickets, styptic, escutcheon, insouciant, tulle, micological (typo: mycological), brisance, reseau, twidgelling, cathexis, cathected, esters, chuff, insousistent, skirling, crepuscular, threnody, coprolite, kalpacs, acclivity, intaglioed, anomic

Pages 600 to 699:

adtorsion, imprecating, coprolaliac, sylvan, appurtenances, swart, ruscant, stelliform, connubial, saltire, colposcope, patellar, chyme, baroquoco (portmanteau of baroque and rococo?), pericardium, thected, jape, dross, vermiform, raglan, fictile, involutional

Pages 700 to 799:

emetics, hanuman, novenas, sacristy, matins, vespers, catexic, sloe, verger, lapsarian, veronica, alacrity, sybaritically, agnate, basso, blancmange, varicoceles, swotting, maundering, mendaciously, restenosis, instantiation, lalating, parturient, synecdoche, olla, podrida, antinomically, gneiss, quoins, lintel, balsamy

Pages 800 to 899:

pizzicato, civety, perfidy, imago, strigil, acciaccatura, alembic, latrodectus, mactans, proprioception, testudo, bricolage, catalept, laertes, chronaxy, luculus, cerise, heliated, pleuritic, effulgence, brocaded, hulpil, huarache, guilloche, parotitic, liebestod, ommatophoric, synovial, ectopic, anipyretic (typo: antipyretic?)

Pages 900 to 999:

phocomelic, achondroplastic, enervated, neurasthenia, porcine, teleologic, clinamen, tessera, kenosis, askesis, prenominate, mellitus, lisle, siphuncular, inspissated, hemoptysis, ursine, fillip, gloaming, imprimatur, catadioptric, epicene, mimesis, sinciput, filigrees, finial, gambrel, étagère, delfts, hyperemic, seraglio, kyphotic, weal, piaffer, ciquatoxic (typo: ciguatoxic?), ataxia, fuliginous

Pages 1000 to 1079

redolent, quotidian, aprick, wakked, unperspicuous, xerophagy, ainsi, breviary, jaspers, solecistic, ascapartic, anapestic, bradylexia, bradyphenia, bradypnea, bradykinesia, gerontologic, hyperauxetic, parp, sallet, calpac, harquebus, escudo, shako, neurosomatic, angiomas, rhinorrhagia, blepharospecticity, ballism, hemispasms, phosphenism, sociosis, rhinophyma, phasece, delirium tremen, traversion, voluble, anaclitic, aspic, tittle, catachresis, vishnu, epithetic, creosote, communate, palliative, funiculi, gonions, uncolloped, latissimal, armamentarium, nictitater, sudoriferous, joss

If your vocabulary is larger than mine, now would be a prime opportunity to mock me.

If you’re curious about the context of any words, Amazon has the entire book online and you can search for the desired word.

Yes, this took longer than I thought it would.

1. Traveling cross country, correcting typos on public signage.
2. Turn on, tune in, drop out.
3. Ben Folds’s brilliant piece.
4. A play mocking the day in history that the world forgot what aesthetics were.
5. An airplane throwing contest.
6. To create a competing product to Coke that would satisfy the needs of Arab speakers in Europe and elsewhere for soft drinks.
7. A nerd auction.
8. An episode of Babylon 5.
9. A college’s “American Idol” ripoff.
10. Selling two spools of thread for one penny.
11. All of Einstein’s good ideas.
12. The name of an aquarium store.
13. Watermarking data files in lieu of using digital rights management.
14. Using municipal water systems to deliver bursts of laser light.
15. One of two potential titles for the seventh Harry Potter book.
16. Ellen’s Academy Awards monologue.

As some of you know, I recently held the Great Mediocre Book Giveaway in which I, unsurprisingly, gave away a lot of books.  I probably should have used PaperBackSwap and gotten something in return.

The Sylvia Plath Effect “refers to the phenomenon that creative writers are more susceptible to mental illness [and] that female poets were more likely to suffer from mental illness than any other class of writers.”  Via Neatorama.

The eighth knifemaker from the 1981 Knifemakers Guild Directory is a fellow named Ray Beers. According to his bio, Ray graduated from college in 1955 and began selling knives professionally in 1979. He’s been selling knives for my entire life.

Ray, by having his son in his official photo, is only the second knifemaker to include someone other than himself in the promo shot (the first was James R. Dick Atkinson and his wife Phyllis), but he’s the first to have an action shot. Look at him, toiling away at his workbench while his son, Michael Beers, stands by, ready to assist in any immediate, knife-related emergencies. I like this photo style, I hope more knifemakers use it.  Also, bonus points to Beers for having a motto: “Self-satisfaction attained from customer satisfaction–that’s a major goal of mine.”

Ray Beers today

Ray Beers was only a probationary member of the Knifemakers Guild in 1981 and he appears to have let his membership lapse since then, but that doesn’t mean he stopped making knives. Franklin Mint, which refers to Beers as a “famed knifemaker,” sells his American Bald Eagle Knife… you’ve got to check this thing out:

You can’t get much more American than that. If Abraham Lincoln had had to fight the Civil War by himself using only a knife, this is the knife he would have used.

While I’m not sure exactly when the American Bald Eagle Knife was designed, Beers is in fact still around and still designing (though there’s some discussion as to whether he stopped in the mid-90s) and is still doing the knife show circuit. As recently as December 2007 he appeared at the Chesapeake Knife Show. Here’s what he looks like today:

He actually looks a little bit like Kevin Spacey. Not a bad person to look like, really.

According to his bio, Ray Beers graduated college in 1955, meaning he is most likely in his mid-70s today, but he looks like he’s in pretty good shape. And pretty successful: he splits his time between Florida and Maryland, surprisingly spending the winter months up north and the summer months down south… he’s doing it backwards!  Maybe his inverse migratory pattern is what makes his knives unique?

Previous knifemaker: Pierce Franklin Beck, Jr.
Next knifemaker: Les Berryman

Other 1981 Knifemaker’s Guild Directory Pages: first page, all pages, all pictures.

Nominees for oddest book titles of the year:

I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen
How to Write a How to Write Book
Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues
Cheese Problems Solved
If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs
People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood

I am disappointed that Drawing and Painting the Undead didn’t make the cut.  Vote for your favorite.

Via BadlyDrawnJeff.

Stephen King’s picks on current books, movies and music.  Sadly it’s not updated all that frequently.  He watched Black Snake Moan.

I’m not the first one to say it, but after recently reading the beginning of the Left Behind series and the entire Christ Clone trilogy, it’s not totally wacky to compare Obama’s rise and public adulation to that of the predicted Anti-Christ’s (at least as described in those books).

Athanata is mentioned in 6 books on Amazon.  I am mentioned in two (Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message and Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Ssssssensation), though someone with the same name is mentioned in a third.  I was sort of proud of having two references until I tried searching for CrazyMonk–he has 24.

Damn.

The seventh knifemaker from the 1981 Knifemakers Guild Directory is a mild mannered man named Pierce Franklin Beck, Jr. I know he’s mild mannered because according to his bio he worked as “a maintenance mechanic at a nuclear energy facility” and if I’ve learned anything from comic books, it’s that Pierce Beck Jr. is, at night, a superhero. His whole self-presentation seems designed to occlude his secret identity. Dull haircut? Check. Big glasses? Check. Uninspiring striped shirt? Check. Strong jawline? … Check! It’s a blade, it’s a knife, it’s a machete… it’s Pierce Man, coming to remove the blight of crime from this fair city with one piercing knife attack after another. That bulletproof vest can’t protect you from Pierce Man’s trusty array of molecularly sharp knives, forged in the very atom smasher that gave him his super powers.

And you know what else? He wasn’t alone at that nuclear facility, George E. Herron (page 85) was “one of his fellow workers.” It sounds like we’ve found ourselves a sidekick.

Ok, that’s probably not really what Pierce Beck is like. He was a voting member of the guild, so they must have respected his work. And according to his bio he was bringing his two sons into the business with him; that doesn’t really seem super-hero-y. I guess he’s probably just a regular knifemaker… or is that what he wants me to think?

Click to big-ify.

Pierce Franklin Beck, Jr. today

Sadly, despite much research online, I can’t find anything out about the present status of Pierce Franklin Beck, Jr. There’s two P F Beck’s living in South Carolina, but I have no way of knowing if he’s either of those. He no longer appears to be a member of the Guild and I can’t anything about his present status. There used to be a BeckKnives.com, but that appears to have been run by a Dave Beck and probably isn’t related to the Pierce Man or either of his sons (Paul or Robbie). It’s too bad. Perhaps he’s changed to a new secret identity… maybe he knew I was on to him?

Previous knifemaker: John (Mike) Bassney
Next knifemaker: Ray Beers

Other 1981 Knifemaker’s Guild Directory Pages: first page, all pages, all pictures.

After a lengthy knifemaker hiatus, the series returns with our sixth member of the 1981 Knifemakers Guild Directory: John (Mike) Bassney. John (Mike)’s picture looks something of a cross between John C. Reilly and Tom Selleck — in other words, like a totally awesome knifemaker. This is really our first knifemaker whose picture looks like someone I would want making my knife. He doesn’t look like a cowboy, or a family man, or a terror, he looks like the sort of guy who would take your knife order and just get right down to business. He’s even wearing what I presume to be a knifemaking apron. This guy would have gotten my business… if I would have ever ordered a custom made knife in 1981 in the greater Wisconsin region.

Something else great about John (Mike) — according to his bio, he went to SUNY Buffalo, graduated, and then moved to Wisconsin. Why is that great you ask? Well, I’m not sure, but I think this is our first confirmed college graduate knifemaker, which is something.

His motto is “I simply wish to make the best knife I can with the material available and at the same time work in line with the customer’s wishes.” That’s modern business-speak. He’s like a corporate executive. I love this guy.

John (Mike) Bassney today

Sadly John (Mike) Bassney is no longer a member of the Knifemakers Guild according to their member list. He was only a probationary member in 1981, so maybe he didn’t make the cut, or maybe he simply let his membership lapse. He might have lost interest in knifemaking altogether, it’s hard to know.

The Google record on Mr. Bassney is quite slim. John (Mike) Bassney turns up nothing that I didn’t write myself, John Bassney is likewise unhelpful.

Mike Bassney, though, does provide us with three hits. He apparently went to Painted Post High School in Painted Post, New York from 1958 to 1962. That would line up well with him graduating from SUNY Buffalo in 1968, so this is probably him. This guy thought he taught shop in Michigan during the 1970s (possible, since he ended up in Wisconsin by 1981). He still appears to live in Lodi, Wisconsin, and he has a job at a local Subway in Columbus, Wisconsin. He’s the host.

Knowing about his knife proclivities, I can surely say that this is one Subway I would never rob.

Previous knifemaker: Scott Barry
Next knifemaker: Pierce Franklin Beck, Jr.

Other 1981 Knifemaker’s Guild Directory Pages: first page, all pages, all pictures.

The Producers was first written as a novel. It talked too much, so I made it into a play, which ended up with too many locations, so I turned it into a film. It was right out of my own life experience; I once worked with a man who did make serious love to very old ladies late at night on an old leather office couch. They would give him blank checks, and he would produce phony plays…

When we finishd the picture, we took it to the Lane Theatre in Philadelphia for a sneak preview around Christmas, 1967. Nobody came. Twelve hundred seats. Eleven people showed up…

“My Movies: The Collision of Art and Money” by Mel Brooks, excerpted from The Movie Business Book by Jason Squire, ed. (1983).

Lore Sjoberg presents a system indicating when it is, and is not, acceptable to reveal a spoiler in a feature film.  Using his rules, since Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be released as a film on November 21st, 2008, I can reveal that Snape kills Dumbledore fourteen weeks after that on February 27th, 2009.

I’m marking that down in my calendar.

Click for source

I recently started reading Empire by Orson Scott Card. It’s generally vaguely crummy and has had a number of typos, but what’s most distracting is that he spells ‘cookie’ with a ‘y’ and no ‘ie’. Several times. Cooky. Really, who spells cookie that way? When he pluralizes it, he does spell it ‘cookies’, so he’s at least aware of the potential alternative construction.

Yes, the use of the word ‘crummy’ earlier was intentional, though I should have spelled it with a ‘b’.