« Lenorama 2005 RSVP's | Main | Mud Map »
October 20, 2005
Lenorama Gift Suggestions
OK, I should start by saying gifts are by no means required, but for those of you who've expressed interest in purchasing me something, I've listed a few ideas. They're ranked in order of how much I will love you if you get me the item.
(1) J.M. Coetzee's "Slow Man" (it's a novel)
(2) Franz Ferdinand's new album
(3) Salman Rushdie's new book - "Shalimar the Crown"
(4) Brett Easton Ellis's "Lunar Park" (continuing in the new novel theme)
(5) Any Eddie Izzard DVD
(6) "Planet Simpson" by Chris Turner (a really cool-sounding critical book on The Simpsons)
(7) Eric Idle's "Greedy Bastard Diary"
(8) Sundry alcoholic beverages - Little Creatures pilsener and Bailey's Irish Cream are good here.
(9) "What the Bleep Do We Know?" DVD
(10) Poetry (this one's for you, Bel)
(11) Anything you think would help someone who's moving out soon and has never lived out of home before to survive in the cold, cold world - muffin pans, cutlery, caviar dishes, whatever. I don't know . . .
(12) If anyone can find a feline IQ test somewhere, I'd be really grateful. I'm convinced my cat is gifted, and yearn for empirical evidence to back this up.
(13) Jarred Diamond's book entitled "Collapse."
(14) Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything"
Posted by len at October 20, 2005 11:20 PM
Comments
Thanks for the invite Dave. Unfortunately my brother in law is celebrating his 50th on the same day. Statistically this makes him closer to death than you and creates a sense of urgency that I should be there. I may have had trouble dressing as MY favourite sci-fi character also. I just can't remember where I left my Barbarella suit after Jane Fonda finished with it!
Posted by: Brian at October 25, 2005 11:19 AM
Len... while it would have been very useful for me to have read this BEFORE your party... I can be somewhat contributory now:
1. I can burn you FF's new cd (would you prefer mp3 + goldfrapp and more, or just regular music cd style?)
2. While no feline IQ test I can 'gift' you:
2A. in line with our paper cut outs on Monday...
2B. Battleground God - what more can I say?
3. That bean bag and those curvilear rocking chairs are still on offer.
oh, and 3.000000000001. You may borrow my Bill Bryson.
NB, since it appears I can't insert links:
2A = http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/
2B = http://www.philosophyquotes.net/cgi-bin/god_game1.cgi?num=0&hits=0&bullets=0&bulletcount=0&hitcount=0
Posted by: n at December 1, 2005 9:33 PM
ahem. avoid J.M Coitus if you can. he is a terrible writer. his "Elizabeth Costello" was full of thinly-veiled rascism and attempts to position the reader against postcolonial writers by making african writers look like frauds. he likes to extrapolate his writing and go on about things he obviously has no experience in (has Coitus ever been raped by a Melbourne dockside worker, or had a failed career on behalf of adultery and had to work as an incinerator).
In short, he's a closet rascist whose work veers on mass culture and popular fiction. (Look at the way its advertised. Is there really a "new breed of intellectual nomads" like E.C? The actual lectures are hideously waffly.)
the nobel prize judges can't find any innovative writers because everything has (supposedly) already been done. So they find competent re-hashers (In their speech on Elfriede Jelinek they make it sound as if defamiliarisation is completely new and original to her work) and occasionally give prizes to people that missed them the first time around. they have a long history of bias and pandering (look at all the Soviet emigre writers that got the prize, and the fact that they gave it to Winston Churchill.)
Find something better to read in my opinion. Like Alex Skovron's new book;)
Posted by: JJ at December 17, 2005 9:11 AM