Sho

Update:  Here's the kickoff to this.

I'm going to blame what I'm about to write on the fact that it was seventy degrees and rainy on my commute to the office.  Seventy degrees on December 1st.  Anyway, since I miss out on all of the fun novel writing activities, the NaNoWriMos etc, because, well, I'm not a novelist, I've decided that I'm going to declare February SoTShoStoWriMo.  So February, the shortest of months, will be all about the short story around here.  Not only am I going to be reading and discussing short stories, but I'm going to sit down and write one.  I haven't given myself a word count yet.  Still sketching out the details.  So think about it and if you're interested you can join in on all the fun.  Maybe I'll set up some sort of SoTShoStoWriMo site where we can show off our ShoStos.  Who knows.  I'm drunk on the December heat and rain.  More details anon.

Anyway, keeping it brief again this morning.  Too much to do:

Jack MacPherson, the legendary renegade of WindanSea made famous by Tom Wolfe in his book The Pump House Gang, died this week in La Jolla.  While looking around for more info on MacPherson and his Mac Meda Destruction Company, I found this article in the La Jolla Light written by FoSoT Varg a few years ago:

Wolfe wrote in the story: "Ooooo-eeee-Mee-dah! They chant this chant, Mee-dah, in a real fakey deep voice, and it really bugs people. They don't know what the hell it is. It is the cry of the Mac Meda Destruction Company. The Mac Meda Destruction company is ... an underground society that started in La Jolla three years ago. Nobody can remember exactly how; they have arguments about it. Anyhow, it is mainly something to bug people with and organize huge beer orgies with."

Though Wolfe brought the group international appeal, he is not thought of as a sage or prophet among the WindanSea locals.

"Tom Wolfe is a dork!" was once spray-painted on the pumphouse he named his story after.

A New York woman gets 65 months in the clink for defrauding would-be authors.  Oh she's so screwed.  I hear they don't like writer abusers in prison.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez attends Castro's 80th birthday party and declares:  "What makes me happier is that while I have come to his 80th birthday, I will come to his 100th party later."

Clive Barker plans to bring the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe to the big screen.

Somewhat related, Chuck Palahniuk's new book will be out May 1:  "Rant takes the form of a (fictional) oral history of Buster "Rant" Casey, in which an assortment of friends, enemies, admirers, detractors, and relations have their say on this evil character, who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time."

Finally, Kevin Sampsell offers up a bunch of new literary terms:

Evelyn Complex: Named after Evelyn Waugh (a man), for an author with a confusing gender name. See Curtis Sittenfeld, Carson McCullers (both women).

Comments

[Varg]

I'm down with SoTShoStoWriMo and I'll set my limit at 6000 words. Sounds like one sitting. The reading that is.

[joschmoe]

Count me in too, Jeff! At least it will get me writing again. Now I just have to practice the SoTShoStoWriMo tongue twister. Not sure about the word count...does flash fiction count?

[Matthew Tiffany]

I might be up for that. It would get me off my duff. Do we get fancy HTML to put on our sites that keep track of the words? Bells and whistles, I'm a whore for the bells and whistles.

[JCR]

Hip. Count me in.

[w]

I'm game.

[Nightlife Princesses]

"Tom Wolfe is a dork!"