Joshua Thorin Messer

Everyone’s favorite Neil will be in Los Angeles on October 6 in support of The Graveyard Book. If you want to see if he’ll be in your town, I recommend subscribing to Where’s Neil

William Gibson is extremely thin. Shockingly thin.

He also looks like he’s missing his front teeth, although he isn’t. This is hard to describe.

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William Gibson’s book tour is coming to Vroman’s in Pasadena tonight @ 7pm (thanks to Keith for the head’s up). I’m clearly living in the wrong place as he’s doing 4 signings in the Bay and only one near LA. I was shocked and dismayed to find I don’t even have a copy of Neuromancer or Count Zero anymore. No Burning Chrome either. And I found out my copy of Pattern Recognition is a second printing! Scandalous.

Looking back over my life, at times I really regret not having 75USD to spend on a very fine First of Neuromancer back in Ann Arbor in ‘97.

And at other times I wish I didn’t have that irrational collector strain in my makeup.

Kurt Vonnegut has joined the ever-growing list of Dead White Males. Now who will continue the battle against creeping mediocrity?

He wanted us to say it. Everyone else said it, and I resisted because I can’t imagine Kurt would really want us all to mindlessly obey his fictional commands, and yet I choose to obey because it is beautiful and terrible:

So it goes.

• William Shakespeare: Dead. White. Male.
• Ben Jonson: Dead. White. Male.
• Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dead. White (hoo-boy was he white). Male.
• James Joyce: Dead. White. Male.
• Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany: Dead. White. Male.
• C.S. Lewis: Dead. White. Male.
• J.R.R. Tolkien: Dead. White. Male.
• Henry Miller: Dead. White. Male.
• Phillip K. Dick: Dead. White. Male.
• William Burroughs: Dead. White. Male.
• Douglas Adams: Dead. White. Male.

I’m beginning to sense a trend here. A lot of these guys are Irish. But seriously, Johnny Cash really belongs on this list but I decided to keep it to the literary persuasion. And most of the actors I truly admire are still living (but still white and male), although probably not for a whole lot longer. But here is the kicker:

• Murakami Haruki: Living. Japanese. Male.

What is it that people say about 2 out of 3?