Lynda Barry has known Matt Groening forever. Since they were students at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., in the early 1970s. Groening heard about this woman who wrote to Joseph Heller, the author of "Catch-22," and asked him to marry her. Heller wrote back to politely decline (he didn't want to live in a dorm), but Groening thought that was so cool. Groening asked Barry to write...
Creating a satire on your own culture is a doubled-bladed dagger. Satirists seldom become lionized or praised for their efforts as pointing out failures and dangers and the ridiculous presence of deluded emperors wearing invisible clothes tends to invoke more embarrassment than wisdom or appreciation. Sometimes greatness is achieved - most readers and critics still applaud Joseph Heller's "Catch-22"...
There's a bit in Joseph Heller's " Catch-22 " where Captain Black runs something he calls the "Glorious Loyalty Oath Campaign", where everyone in the squadron finds themselves forced to sign oaths pledging their loyalty in order to get absolutely anything or everything: " Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain Black was enraptured...
A clickable index of titles covered so far... 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke A Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol l All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara Arden of Faversham, possibly by William Shakespeare Around the World in Eighty...
So, we're starting to get some tantalizing glimpses of the where the publishing industry is likely to be in the next couple of years. First of all, Publishers Marketplace reoprted last week on former HarperCollins boss, Jane Friedman who officially announced her new venture Open Road Integrated Media at Frankfurt, though the unit was first reported on in August when her funding of $3 million was disclosed....
Friedman to publish Catch-22 e-book 19.10.09 - The Bookseller Joseph Heller's Catch-22 will be published as an e-book for the first time as part of Jane Friedman's new publishing venture, Open Road Integrated Media . Speaking at the Frankfurt Book Fair last week, the former HarperCollins chief executive described Open Road as a "content marketing company", which creates "enhanced"...
I was looking at a list of banned books , and found myself amazed anew at the idea that anyone would feel so powerful and so right that they would take it upon themselves to attempt to control the flow of information into another person's life, another person's mind. And yet books are banned every year--books many of us consider great, important, wonderful works of literature. Consider the list below,...
"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind." Joseph Heller's Catch-22 The Washington Times reports that, only weeks prior to the deadly attack, several intelligence report were issued warning of an imminent assault on the base. From the article:...
After a bloody summer, the announcement that soldiers must stay an extra month in Afghanistan is quite unacceptable The arbitrary extension of tours of duty is the basis of the plot of Joseph Heller's dark military satire Catch 22. And now it's happening to the British army in Afghanistan. The news that elements of some units of 19 Light Brigade in Afghanistan have been told that they must remain...
I ran across this while trolling some student media sites and found myself wondering if Joseph Heller ever considered writing about student newspapers. The gist of the story is that a pro-life group tried to run a 12-page insert in...
I accidentally strayed onto Facebook a couple of days ago, mainly because I was clearing down some of the applications that seem to create repeats of my messages. I think I deleted around forty so-called applications that had somehow installed in my Facebook. How careless of me. Anyway, I also stumbled onto this little quiz from the BBC about books. Apparently the average person has read six of these....
“I decided to commit $1 billion to the Peter G. Peterson foundation—the vast majority of my net proceeds from Blackstone. Why so much? Kurt Vonnegut once told a story about seeing Joseph Heller at a wealthy hedge-fund manager’s party at a beach house in the Hamptons. Casting his eye around the luxurious setting, Vonnegut said, [...]
As most of you already know, I no longer do memes. That way, I don't have to worry about tagging people, etc. But I have taken the time to look at the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 novels, and to put the ones I've read in italics. The ones in bold? Yeah - they've all been banned or challenged at one point or another, according to the ALA. 42% of them have been banned or challenged over the years....
Read a banned book, or just be aware of the reasons that books are challenged for their right to be in libraries or classrooms. Top three reasons for targeting a book: 1. the material was considered to be "sexually explicit" 2. the material contained "offensive language" 3. the materials was "unsuited to any age group" Reasons for challenges from 2001 through 2008 (24%...
Most me are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. - Joseph Heller, Catch-22 Well, well, well... It seems Charles Johnson has really pissed off...
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